As air travel becomes more and more common, and airspace becomes more crowded, there is increased interest in employing supersonic aircraft. Supersonic aircraft have challenges related to the supersonic travel. In particular, supersonic travel creates compressed pressure waves around the supersonic aircraft. The compressed pressure waves generally result in a noise called a sonic boom. Commonly, and as used herein, the phrase “sonic boom” references both the pressure waves and the associated noise. The sonic boom has a potential to adversely affect neighboring aircraft, particularly those flying below the supersonic aircraft. Conventional aircraft flight control methods often determine when a supersonic aircraft may travel at supersonic speeds based on geography (for example, when the supersonic aircraft is over a water body rather than above neighboring aircraft), and this means the supersonic aircraft may be unable to travel at supersonic speeds for a significant percentage of its flight path.
Accordingly, improvements to aircraft flight control methods and systems are desirable. Specifically, technologically improved aircraft flight control systems and methods that increase the percentage of an assigned flight path that a supersonic aircraft can fly at supersonic speeds are desirable. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent Detailed Description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this Background.